Sociologists do not agree on one standard definition of ‘the family’. Show Functionalist sociologists traditionally used narrow definitions of the family, in which the family unit had to consist of a man and a woman in a committed sexual relationship living together with their children. More contemporary Postmodern sociologists prefer much broader definitions of the family which extend the concept to include anyone an individual thinks of as being ‘part of the family’, such as friends or even pets. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ definition of the family, but you do need to know how sociologists define the family to really understand their perspective on the family, and to be able to evaluate the different perspectives. The rest of this introductory post explores how the concept of ‘the family’ has been used by different sociologists, and aims to get you thinking about what the family is. It has been written as an introduction the Families and Households module for A-level sociology, AQA focus. The Functionalist definition of the familyFunctionalist Sociologist George Peter Murdock used the following definition of the family as a starting point in his classic cross national study of families in more than 250 societies. ‘A social group characterised by common residence, economic cooperation and reproduction. It includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults’ (Murdock, 1949).  Today, many Sociologists criticise the above definition of the family as being too narrow because (both today and historically) too many groups of people who regard themselves as a family would not be included in the above definition, such as reconstituted or step-families and same sex families. For example, The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘the family’ as ‘a group consisting of one or two parents and their children’. (1) The above definition includes step-families, single parent families and doesn’t even mention sex or sexual orientation of the parents, so includes same-sex families too. One way around the problem of defining a family is to distinguish carefully between different ‘family arrangements’ when we discuss them. It is also generally good practice to define your concepts tightly when writing and essay or before conducting research. There is nothing wrong with limiting your research or analysis to just one specific type of family below, you just need to make sure you are clear about limiting your discussion. (It’s often necessary to focus more tightly just for the sake of time!) Different types of familySome of the most common family types in modern Britain include. The Nuclear Family – two parents with biological children living in one household. The reconstituted family – two partners living in one household sharing parental duties for one or more children, but only one of them is the biological parent. The single parent family – one adult with one or more children living in one household The extended family – where relatives such as uncles/ aunts or grandparents reside permanently in the same household as those making up the nuclear family. Postmodern definitions of the familyBecause of the diversity within family life in contemporary Britain, post-modern thinkers suggest that it is better to use a broader definition of ‘the family’, which includes a range of family types – one suggested definition of the family is ‘a group of people who are related by either blood or marriage/ similar form of committed relationship’ Because of the problems of defining the family it is often easier to analyse families in terms of households (NB – The module you’re all studying is called families and households, we just tend to abbreviate it to the ‘families’ module) A household is much easier to define than a family – A household is simply a group of people who share a residence in common and share such things as meals, bills, facilities or chores, or one person living alone. Of course, families can spread themselves across many households! Case study: the Rainbow Family of LightHave a look at the case study below, do you think this group of people is a ‘family’? The Rainbow Family was created out of the Vortex gathering in Oregon from August 28 to September 3, 1970. Inspired in large part by the first Woodstock Festival. Those who attend Rainbow Gatherings usually share an interest in intentional communities, ecology and new age spirituality. Attendees refer to one another as “brother”, “sister”, or the gender neutral term, “sibling.” Attendance is open to all interested parties and decisions are reached through group meetings leading to some form of group consensus. The organization is a loose, international affiliation of individuals who have a stated goal of trying to achieve peace and love on earth. There are no official leaders or structure, no official spokespersons, and no formalized membership. Strictly speaking, the only goals are set by each individual, as no individual can claim to represent all Rainbows in word or deed. You might also like this video… I think it shows one of the activities these people get up to during their gatherings, a good old sing song! Question: is the family rainbow of light a family?Think carefully about this – if you do then it means that practically any group of friends with close emotional ties should be called a family, but is this really what me mean when we use the term ‘family’? Or should sociologists limit themselves to studying families in the more traditional sense of the word? If you want to explain why you voted in more depth, drop in a comment at the end!Defining the family… why it matters…You can only really get your head around perspectives on the family if you understand how different perspectives define the family differently! Ultimately, how you define the family will determine how you conclude any essay within the families and households module! Sources (1) The Oxford English Dictionary definition of the family.
Learning Outcomes
Family is a key social institution in all societies, which makes it a cultural universal. Similarly, values and norms surrounding marriage are found all over the world in every culture, so marriage and family are both cultural universals. Statuses (i.e., wife, husband, partner, mom, dad, brother, sister, etc.) are created and sanctioned by societies. While marriage and family have historically been closely linked in U.S. culture, with marriages creating new families, their connection is becoming more complex, as illustrated by the opening vignette and in the subsequent data on cohabitation. Sociologists are interested in the relationship between the institution of marriage and the institution of family because families are the most basic social unit upon which society is built, but also because marriage and family are linked to other social institutions such as the economy, government, and religion. So what is a family? Family is a socially recognized group (usually joined by blood, marriage, cohabitation, or adoption) that forms an emotional connection among its members and that serves as an economic unit of society. Sociologists identify different types of families based on how one enters into them. A family of orientation refers to the family into which a person is born. A family of procreation describes one that is formed through marriage. These distinctions have cultural significance related to issues of lineage. Marriage is a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union. Marriage is a cultural universal, and like family, it takes many forms. Who gets married, what the marriage means to the couple and to the society, why people get married (i.e., economic reasons, political reasons, or for love), and how it occurs (i.e., wedding or other ceremony) vary widely within and between societies. In practicing cultural relativism, we should also consider variations, such as whether a legal union is required (think of “common law” marriage and its equivalents), or whether more than two people can be involved (consider polygamy). Other variations on the definition of marriage might include whether spouses are of opposite sexes or the same sex, and how one of the traditional expectations of marriage–that children will be produced–is understood today. Figure 1. The modern concept of family is far more encompassing than in past decades, which is evidenced in both laws (formal norms) and social control (both formal and informal). (Photo (a) courtesy Gareth Williams/flickr; photo (b) courtesy Guillaume Paumier/ Wikimedia Commons) The sociological understanding of what constitutes a family can be explained by the paradigms of symbolic interactionism and functionalism. These two theories indicate that families are groups in which participants view themselves as family members and act accordingly. In other words, families are arrangements in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection and to maintain emotional ties with one another. Such families may include groups of close friends or teammates. Figure 2. Family dynamics have shifted significantly in the past sixty years, with fewer children living in two-parent households. In addition, the functionalist perspective views families as groups that perform vital roles for society—both internally (for the family itself) and externally (for society as a whole). Families provide for one another’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Parents care for and socialize children. Later in life, adult children often care for elderly parents. While interactionism helps us understand the symbolic, subjective experience and meaning of belonging to a “family,” functionalism illuminates the many purposes of families and their roles in the maintenance of a balanced society (Parsons and Bales 1956). Irrespective of what form a family takes, it constitutes a basic social unit upon which societies are based, and can reflect other societal changes. For example, the bar graph shows how much the family structure has changed in a relatively short period of time. What trends do you see in the bar graph? What variables might help explain the increase in single parents between 1960 and 1980 and 2014? What variables might help explain the decrease in children living in two parent/first marriage families? Which theoretical perspectives can help explain this phenomenon? People in the United States as a whole are somewhat divided when it comes to determining what does and what does not constitute a family. In a 2010 survey conducted by professors at the University of Indiana, nearly all participants (99.8 percent) agreed that a husband, wife, and children constitute a family. Ninety-two percent stated that a husband and a wife without children still constitute a family. The numbers drop for less traditional structures: unmarried couples with children (83 percent), unmarried couples without children (39.6 percent), gay male couples with children (64 percent), and gay male couples without children (33 percent) (Powell et al. 2010). This survey revealed that children tend to be the key indicator in establishing “family” status: the percentage of individuals who agreed that unmarried couples and gay couples constitute a family nearly doubled when children were added. The study also revealed that 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family (a concept that reinforces an interactionist perspective) (Powell 2010). The government, however, is not so flexible in its definition of “family.” The U.S. Census Bureau defines a family as “a group of two people or more (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption and residing together” (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). While this structured definition can be used as a means to consistently track family-related patterns over several years, it excludes individuals such as cohabitating unmarried couples. Legality aside, sociologists would argue that the general concept of family is more diverse and less structured than in years past. Society has given more leeway to the design of a family making room for what works for its members (Jayson 2010). Family is, indeed, a subjective concept, but it is a fairly objective fact that family (whatever one’s concept of it may be) is very important to people in the United States. In a 2010 survey by Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, 76 percent of adults surveyed stated that family is “the most important” element of their life—just one percent said it was “not important” (Pew Research Center 2010). It is also very important to society. President Ronald Reagan notably stated, “The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms” (Lee 2009). While the design of the family may have changed in recent years, the fundamentals of emotional closeness and support are still present. Most responders to the Pew survey stated that their family today is at least as close (45 percent) or closer (40 percent) than the family with which they grew up (Pew Research Center 2010). As you may have seen in the chapter on Aging and the Elderly, different generations have varying living situations and views on aging. The same goes for living situations with family. The Pew Research Center analyzed living situation of 40-year-olds from different generations. At that age, Millennials indicated that 45 percent of them were not living in a family of their own. In contrast, when Gen Xers and Baby Boomers were about 40 years old (around 2003 and 1987, respectively), an average of 33 percent of them lived outside of a family (Barroso 2020). The dynamic of nearly a 50-50 split between family/non-family for Millennials is very different from a two-third/one third split of Boomers and Gen X. The data also show that women are having children later in life and that men are much less likely to live in a household with their own children. In 2019, 32 percent of Millennial men were living in a household with their children, compared to 41 percent of Gen X men in 2003 and 44 percent of Boomer men in 1987 (Barroso 2020). Again, the significant drop off in parenting roles likely has an impact on attitudes toward family.
Figure 2. First families. (a) President Trump with his wife, Melania, and five kids. (b) President Obama with his wife, Michelle, and kids Malia and Sasha. When a political candidate runs for office in the United States, there is a lot of attention paid to the candidate’s family because this is thought to be a reflection of the candidate and the candidate’s values. When former U.S. President Barack Obama ran for office, many questioned his Kenyan lineage through his father’s side, as well as his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia, where his mother was doing anthropological work. His parents separated when he was young, and he was raised by his white mother. Michelle Obama, originally from the south side of Chicago, was educated at Princeton and Harvard, then held a prestigious position at the University of Chicago, which she left once her husband was elected. The former first couple married in 1992 and have two children who were born in 1998 and 2001. President Donald Trump grew up in New York City (in Queens) to Fred, a real estate developer, and Mary Anne Trump. He was married and divorced twice, and had four children (three with Ivana Trump and one with Marla Maples) before marrying current First Lady Melania Trump, with whom he has a fifth child, Barron Trump. Both Ivana and Melania were models and were both born in Eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia and Slovenia respectively). Three marriages and five children make the First Family quite unique in U.S. Presidential history.
family: socially recognized groups of individuals who may be joined by blood, marriage, or adoption and who form an emotional connection and an economic unit of society family of orientation: the family into which one is born family of procreation: a family that is formed through marriage marriage: a legally recognized contract between two or more people in a sexual relationship who have an expectation of permanence about their relationship Contribute!Did you have an idea for improving this content? We’d love your input. Improve this pageLearn More |
What is the sociological definition of parents?
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